Recently there’s been a increase in the popularity of OpenSCAD as the tool of choice in the 3d printing community. [Gavilan Steinman] is putting out a series of webTV shorts on the use of OpenSCAD. While it lacks a lot of the features of big CAD suits (such as the ability to generate drawings of your parts), the community has proven it’s effectiveness as a design tool. There are only two episodes out so far but they cover OpenSCAD, mathcast, 3d printing, and a really neat robot design. Watch them below.
openscad115 Articles
How To: Make A Printable CES Badge

We figured we put you through enough posts about our CES badges without telling you how we did it or how to get one. This how-to will walk through the process of creating a badge from a dxf file for a logo. Then we will tell you where to get one. Continue reading “How To: Make A Printable CES Badge”
Punching Out Parts

If you’re more of a code monkey than artist, it may be tough to transform your ideas into the 3D models necessary for fabbing. The folks working on openSCAD apparently feel our pain.
openSCAD uses a language somewhat reminiscent of C for creating models. A preview of the model is rendered alongside your code. Fully cross-platform, it runs on Linux, OS X, and Windows. Much like SketchUp, openSCAD can also extrude 2D outlines into models. This feature comes in very useful if one already has a set of technical drawings for a part. With no price tag, it’s pretty affordable during this costly season.
